Ventura Ventura Ventura

I decided that I'd use Ventura for the publishing, as it has a lot of in-line table options, and as I'm going to show a lot of tabular information, it makes sense to use a tool that makes it easy to do.

I'm now about 50% of the way through writing the Player's section of the rules. Should have it finished soon.

Publication Format

I think I'm going to release the books in PDF format, and stay away from RTF, HTML and other formats. Sticking with PDF means that I'll need to maintain only one set of documents for each publication. I'll either use Pagemaker, Ventura or OpenOffice for creating the publication. As I don't see these books being published in dead tree format at any time in the future, it won't really matter what DTP tool I use to publish them, as I won't require CMYK separations.

Initial List of Publications

I'm making a list of the initial publications that will comprise of the EveryGame System. So far I have:

• Core Rules
  
• Careers Supplement
  
• Skills Supplement
  
• Racial Supplement
  
• Boons & Banes Supplement
  
• Asset Supplement
  
• Bestiary Supplement

Technically, each of these could be added into a single publication that's downloadable, but I think that keeping them all in their own separate
publications will make it easier for people download -- it'll be easier to download one document portion of the system instead of the full
document again. As a change is made, it's automatically applied to the publication and is made instantly downloadable.

I'm also considering creating individual Change Log documents for each publication that can be downloaded separately from the publication. This
is a handy way for me to keep track of when changes take place. The Change Logs can also be made available as RSS feeds for quick reading in an
RSS reader.

I've decided against the separate Basic and Advanced books, as it'll be much easier just to combine the Advanced rules into the text of the Basic
text. It'll also pad out the document a lot, as the skills themselves will be in their own publication.

EveryGame World Settings

Another core aspect of EveryGame is the concept of World Settings. Although it's a generic system, EveryGame World Settings (EWS) are customized templates for individual settings. Each is self-contained and details the allowed Advanced rules, as well as items, flora, fauna, locations, Skills, Powers, and characters specific to that setting. The main Basic and Advanced Rules books will contain all of the generic rules for the game system, and there will be Addenda for each of the EWS that builds upon this. Think of the Addenda as a reconfiguration of the rules for a specific setting.

I want to keep rules and setting content separate. I know there are a lot of people who don't like this, and prefer to integrate the rules and setting into one complete publication, but I'm personally a fan of keeping them separate. If nothing else, it keeps the generic nature of the system intact, by allowing the interchanging of any other system to use the generic settings. I'll probably launch the game content under another label.

I'd also like the EWS to be able to be pulished in such a way so that they'll be able to be used by other generic game systems such as GURPS, FUDGE, TRI-STAT etc. Keeping content and rules system separate means that it should be easy enough to produce a stand-alone rules Addenda for any EWS created so that it can be used for other game systems.

First Draft On Its Way

Hopefully I'll have the first draft of EveryGame available within a couple of weeks for others to review, although it will only be the Basic version of the game. It's important to get that released and tested first before adding in the Advanced rules, as any problems with the Basic system mechanics will cause major problems when compounding the system with the Advanced Rules.

I'm still deciding whether to release in HTML, PDF, RTF etc. I'll probably release development editions as PDF versions as that will keep everything self-contained and retain some basic formatting.

EveryGame Licensing

I'm considering releasing the EveryGame System under the Creative Commons license. I really like the no-nonsense approach to copyright that the Creative Commons give, and think it's an ideal way to create and develop a community-developed project. Although I'm creating the initial draft of the EveryGame System, I want to allow people to create and release for it as well, just like people do for FUDGE and other systems.